Rns Picket For Healthy Wages

Contract Talks With Wpb Hospital Are At Impasse

Dozens of off-duty registered nurses at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach made rounds on Friday outside the hospital while carrying picket signs.

The nurses were protesting what they said was the administration's failure to provide a decent wage offer during contract negotiations and its attempts to impose work rules that could affect patient care.

While the nurses picketing are not on strike, talks between the hospital and the union, the Florida Nurses Association, broke off earlier this week. Even a federal mediator could not keep both sides at the table.

At the last bargaining session, the nurses were pushing for a 10.5 percent salary increase over three years, and the administration was offering 9 percent over the same time.

Hospital spokesman Pat Bowers said no talks were scheduled over the weekend. She characterized the picketing as peaceful and said no hospital functions had been affected by the protest.

"We want to assure you that every effort will be made to ensure that individuals wishing to enter or leave our facilities do so without disruption," the president of St. Mary's parent firm, Intracoastal Health Systems, wrote in a full-page newspaper advertisement to residents on Friday.

On Greenwood Avenue, six of the 10 trauma nurses picketed as a group, all saying they enjoyed their jobs, but feared experienced registered nurses would leave to work elsewhere for more money.

St. Mary's employs about 670 registered nurses, 430 of whom are in the bargaining unit. All of the nurses would be covered by the provisions of a new contract, union leaders said.